Abstract
Introduction: Many studies have shown that rhythmic movement coordination entails use of perception to couple the movements. Different sensory modalities can be used (e.g. vision versus kinesthesis). However, it is unknown whether learning via one modality allows one to perform the learned coordination using another modality, and if so, whether this is immediate (amodal information) or requires time to allow one modality to train another. Methods: To examine this issue, we trained two groups of participants (10Ss each) to produce 90° rhythmic coordination either visually (unimanual) or kinesthetically (bimanual), then tested whether the learning transferred to performance with the other modality, either immediately or after practice producing 90° with inter-sensory redundancy (i.e. with both visual and kinesthetic information available). Results: Both groups: 1) learned 90° similarly; 2) showed little immediate transfer to the untrained single modality condition; 3) were able to use the redundancy condition to train the untrained modality. Adding the untrained modality in the inter-sensory redundancy condition impaired learned performance more for the visually trained group. Conclusion: The results show that learning to detect and use relevant information in one modality does not allow one to be able to immediately detect and use the information in another modality. Nevertheless, one modality can teach another when cross training is allowed.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016